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Arlaug the Gimlet-Eyed
Arlaug the Gimlet-Eyed comes from a long tradition of crusaders. Character sheet Olrun, Arlaug's paternal grandmother, was a heavily-armoured, tactical fighter,. Sharp as nails, commander of men, and taking no nonsense, she was the commander on several expeditions into the worldwound. Her first husband, Ulric, was particularly sneaky, skulking around, spying deep into the demonic territory, and with a cunning knowledge of traps and dirty tactics - which, in a war on demons, were deemed perfectly acceptable. Somewhat older than her, he was killed at the age of fifty due to the risks of his job. Though she had no intent to marry again, the bard Gunnar won her heart while the two were tending to refugees from one of the nastier battles. Quick-witted, joking, and, while his humour got darker as things went worse, he was almost always cheerful. They had several children together, all named with names beginning in S. Solva, Arlaug's aunt, is notable for having slipped off away from the magic lessons that she and her sister were taking, joined a small ragtag band, and cleared out a Sarkorian ruin, which for nearly a decade was one of the front-line forts in the war, before finally being overrun (a deed inspired by her mother Olrun's sister, Solva, who she was named after, and who was the first commander of Drezen). While she retired relatively early - it was a quiet period - her deeds, being recent and, for a time, quite important to the war, are fairly well known, as are the names of her companions, Ignatius, Ludmilla, and Emrys. Arlaug's mother, Sigyn, stuck with the magic lessons, and, coming onto the field after her sister, rose to fame in the Battle of Melnus, which, although Melnus eventually fell, because of the actions of her and others, became such a Pyrrhic victory to the forces of evil that several years of peace followed. In the same battle, her later-husband, Tvimadur, came up with the idea of replacing some of the defenses on part of the walls with fake ones made of logs and other items, allowing them to suddenly bring out more weapons on the part under worst siege, scaring the demons, convincing the demons to retreat for some time, and, due to the disorderliness of the retreat, vastly increasing the number of demonic casualties in the slaughter. Tvimadur's father, Belgthor, was a berserker. Prone to extremes of emotion, and funneling them into battle, he laughed in the face of carnage, cutting through demon after demon. At one point in his career, largely by accident, he managed to rescue a huge number of captives, apparently intended for some grand ritual. He was good at battle, but the logistics of this challenge were beyond him - and his relief at the arrival a small band of Milani clerics, who would have arrived too late were it not for him stumbling onto the scene, and their competent handling fo the situation otherwise beyond him, eventually led to him becoming very close to one of the clerics, Mirela, a Varisian woman passionate about helping others - and later passionate about Belgthor. Home journeys were often a bit awkward for them, but as Belgthor worshipped Kols, the God of Duty, so felt that he should be in the crusade whenever he could, and Mirela thought the Worldwound was the best place to help prevent oppression, they mainly stayed at Kenabres anyway, raising their children there, and only returning to Ulfen lands when they had grown too old to continue, and their duty to their children began to outweigh things. By then, they had founded entire sects, lodges, and other groups to take up their cause. One lodge was run by Mirela's brother, Guaril, who, while not much of a fighter - he was lame in one leg - proved to have a genius for organization, and managed to grow it into one of the largest in Kenabres.